The Mysterious Three Part 24

"On several charges. The most recent is a charge of obtaining money by fraud--a large sum. There is also a charge of blackmail."

"Against both?"

"Against both."

I was silent. Here was a new phase of the affair. By degrees we gathered from him that Paulton was known to be interested in various undertakings of, to say the least, a dubious nature, also that he promoted wild-cat companies in England, on the Continent, and in America. Information that especially interested us was that all who had escaped from the fire had made their way to the lodge at the entrance to the drive.

It was at this juncture that the other gendarme reappeared. He was still on horseback, and, as he came towards us slowly, our attention became centred upon the man who walked beside him, with one hand on his stirrup. In the distance it looked very like Paulton.

He seemed quite composed. His mouth was bound up, partly concealing his face.

When a few yards from us the gendarme reined up. As he did so, Paulton raised his arm, pointed at me, and said in French--

"That's the man you came to arrest. That is Dago Paulton."

"And his companion?" the gendarme asked.

"Is his valet."

"And your name, monsieur?"

"Ferrari--Paoli Ferrari. My father was Italian, my mother English. I have been in Mr. Paulton's service as butler for the last three years.

Previous to that I was butler to Count Pinto"--the Portuguese diplomat who had won the cup for shooting.

"Thank you, monsieur, I am exceedingly indebted to you," the gendarme said blandly. Then, producing an official-looking doc.u.ment, he said to me--

"We have to take you into custody, you and Madame la Baronne."

For some moments, indignation prevented my speaking. Was it possible these outrageous statements of Paulton's would be taken without question? Such a thing seemed monstrous and grotesque, but knowing, as I did, how intensely stupid some police officials are, no matter to what country they may belong, I thought it likely that I should presently be marched off and placed under lock and key.

Faulkner, to my annoyance, seemed amused.

"They will march you twelve miles to Digne," he said, "and when you get there and prove your ident.i.ty they will apologise in the most humble fashion for the mistake that has been made. Meanwhile, you will have had your twelve-mile walk, and Paulton have been allowed to escape. Had we looked less disreputable than we do, our statements might have been believed in preference to his."

In my indignation I at first became sarcastic, and thinking that liberty at that moment would be far better than being held up upon a false charge, I made a sudden bolt for it, cutting swiftly across a meadow and leaping a stream. I am a good runner, but, of course, the mounted gendarmes were quickly upon me, and cut me off, so I soon found myself in their hands.

Faulkner elected to come with me, but we were not marched to Digne.

Instead, we were allowed to walk leisurely alongside the horses as far as the village, a distance of two miles or so, and there were shown into a comfortable room in the tiny police bureau, and given breakfast. The garde-champetre spoke English fluently. He had lived in England several years. Consequently in a short time we succeeded in convincing him of the blunder the gendarme had made, and in proving who we were.

By this time the village was beginning to awaken, and crowds were on their way to the chateau. We soon found a tradesman willing to let out a horse and trap in return for a louis paid in advance. In this we also started back for the chateau, anxious to get news of Vera, and of Violet.

On our way by the road, we found the lodge of the chateau, it had not been in sight more than a minute, when a large red car pa.s.sed out through the gateway into the high road we were on, turned, and sped away from us along the long white ribbon of road at terrific speed. It must, we calculated as it dwindled into a distant speck, have been travelling at a speed of quite sixty miles an hour. Faulkner looked at me significantly. Our surmise had been correct, the servants had sought shelter at the lodge and had now left.

By the time we reached the smouldering ruins, a score of people, all of them peasants, stood staring at it. The good French farmers had each some plat.i.tude to make: "It must have been an enormous fire;" "It must have burned very quickly;" "Some one must have set it alight," and so on. They were all people of the bovine type, as we found when we tried to obtain information from them.

The Baronne and her niece lived there. That was about all that they could tell us. Apparently they knew nothing of Paulton--had never seen or heard of him.

How many servants had there been in the Chateau they knew not. But a man and several women had just left the lodge in a motor-car.

"We can do no good by staying here," Faulkner said at last. "We had better make for Digne. What puzzles me is, where can the servants be?

There must have been servants, and they could have told us something.

They are not at the lodge. Perhaps Paulton had taken them with him in the car we had seen. The only soul at the lodge is an old woman who is stone deaf, and she is crying so that she cannot speak at all."

We stood gazing thoughtfully at the still smouldering fire, when Faulkner said suddenly--

"What is that big, square thing down among the twisted girders?" and he pointed to it.

We could not make out what it was. Then, all at once I realised.

"Why," I said, "it's a safe--one of those big American safes. I expect its contents are uninjured."

But where was Vera? Ah! I felt beside myself in anxiety--a breathless, burning longing, to know how fared the one woman in all the world who held me in her hands for life, or for death.

She loved me, truly and well--of that I was convinced. And yet she existed in that mysterious hateful bondage--a bondage which, alas! she dared not attempt to break.

What could be the truth? Why were her lips closed?--Ay, why indeed? I dreaded to think.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

IN WHICH THE MASK IS RAISED.

Three days had pa.s.sed.

Two curious things happened while we were sitting in the atrium of the Casino in Monte Carlo during the interval.

In the first place Paulton's friend, Henderson, whom I had met only on that one occasion in the fumoir of the hotel, happened to saunter in.

He looked hard at both of us, but either did not recognise us--a thing that I think hardly possible--or else deliberately cut us.

Later, I went over to the buffet with Faulkner, for the play was not interesting, and we had decided to leave. A dozen men stood there, talking, and suddenly I caught the word "D'Uzerche."

They were talking of the fire three days previously. Anxious to hear all I could about Chateau d'Uzerche, I moved a little nearer.

"They've not discovered the Baronne's body," I heard the young Frenchman say, "and apparently no one else was burnt. I wonder if those old rumours one heard about the Baronne were really true?"

"What rumours?" his companion, a bald-headed gambler, asked. "I don't seem to remember hearing any."

"You mean to say you have never heard the stories that everybody knows?"

the first speaker exclaimed. "My dear fellow, where do you live?"

"In Paris as a rule," his friend answered drily. "I returned here last week."

"Ah, pardon me, I had forgotten. Well, it has long been common talk--"

He lowered his voice and spoke into his companion's ear. I approached as near as I dared, but I could not catch a word.

"You can't mean it!" his friend exclaimed. "Surely it isn't possible!"

"Everything is possible, _mon cher ami_," the first speaker said. "The less possible things seem, generally the more possible they are. I shall be anxious to hear what is found inside the safe that the newspapers say has been discovered amongst the debris. If it is not claimed it will, I take it, be the duty of the police to open it."